152 Idle Days in Patagonia. 



body in birds is less solid ; it is filled with air in the 

 bones and feathers, and acts differently as a sound- 

 ing board; furthermore, the extremely distensible 

 sesophagus, although it has no connection with the 

 trachea, is puffed out with swallowed air when the 

 bird emits its notes, and this air, both when re- 

 tained and when released, in some way affects the 

 voice. Then, again, the bird sings or calls, as a 

 rule, from a greater elevation, and does not sit 

 squat, like a toad, on his perch, but being lifted 

 above it on his slender legs, the sounds he emits 

 acquire a greater resonance. 



There are bird sounds which may be 9 and often 

 are, likened to other sounds ; to bells, to the clang- 

 ing produced by blows on an anvil, and to various 

 other metallic noises ; and to strokes on tightly- 

 drawn metal strings ; also to the more or less 

 musical sounds we are able to draw from wood and 

 bone, and from vessels of glass by striking them or 

 drawing the moistened finger-tips along their rims. 

 There are also sounds resembling those that are 

 uttered by mammalians, as bellowings, lowings, 

 bleatings, neighings, barkings, and yelpings. Others 

 simulate the sounds of various musical instruments, 

 and human vocal sounds, as of talking, humming a 

 tune, whistling, laughing, moaning, sneezing, cough- 

 ing, and so on. But in all these, or in a very large 

 majority, there is an airy resonant quality which 

 tells you, even in a deep wood, in the midst of an 

 unfamiliar fauna, that the new and strange sound 

 is uttered by a bird. The clanging anvil is in the 



